AI Industry Faces Political Battle as Rival Super PACs Prepare for 2026 Midterm Spending War

Fears About A.I. Prompt Talks of Super PACs to Rein In the Industry

Theodore Schleifer writes about the intersection of money, technology and politics. As artificial intelligence companies gain political power and prepare to pour cash into the midterm elections, some of those worried about the dangers of an unfettered A.I. industry are setting out to raise tens of millions of dollars to back candidates of their own. Talks have revolved around plans to raise about $50 million for a new network of super PACs that would back midterm candidates in both parties who prioritize A.I. regulations, according to four people briefed on the discussions, who insisted on anonymity to disclose the closely held plans. The founder of the network, Brad Carson, a Democratic former congressman from Oklahoma, on Tuesday confirmed some details about its plans in an interview with The New York Times. The super PACs are meant to counter a group called Leading the Future, which generally opposes strong A.I. regulations and has raised $100 million combined from Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent A.I. investing firm, and the family of Greg Brockman, a co-founder of OpenAI. Leading the Future has chosen its first candidate to oppose in Alex Bores, a Democrat running for a U.S. House seat in New York who has championed A.I. safety legislation. Its allied nonprofit group said on Monday that it was planning a $10 million campaign to support the federal A.I. legislation. In recent weeks, conversations about challenging Leading the Future have accelerated among employees at Anthropic, an A.I. company that favors more guardrails for the technology. The discussions have also included allied donors who are loosely tied to the effective altruism movement, a community of activists whose beliefs include concerns about the safety of A.I. Anthropic, OpenAI's main start-up rival in the United States, was started by a breakaway group of OpenAI employees who felt the company was insufficiently serious about protecting society from the dangers of A.I. Valued recently at $183 billion, Anthropic has at times been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House, which has generally pushed for acceleration of the domestic A.I. industry and dismissed safety concerns as coming from "doomers." (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.) The goal of the new super PACs, according to Mr. Carson, is to raise $50 million initially, with some of the other people involved hoping to match the $100 million raised by the rival group. The new groups are so motivated to challenge Leading the Future, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed super PAC, that some allies have joked about naming their super PACs "z16a," an inversion of Andreessen Horowitz's commonly used nickname, "a16z." The money for the super PACs will come from a new 501(c)(4) group, Public First, which will not be required to disclose its donors. Public First will in turn plan to evenly fund one group for Democratic candidates, Jobs and Democracy PAC, and another for Republicans, Defending Our Values PAC. Some money for the advocacy network is likely to come from Anthropic's wealthy executives and rank-and-file employees, rather than from the company itself. A person close to Anthropic said the company and its executives were exploring various options for political engagement but had not yet decided on a group to support or deployed money into any groups. Jack Clark, a co-founder of Anthropic, said at an event in Washington in September that "we are actively working" on a super PAC but did not offer details. "There's a huge community of companies and organizations that actually care about getting A.I. right," he said. "And then there might be a community inside the technology industry that has a different view." Mr. Carson, who until this year served as the president of the University of Tulsa, said in the interview that he knew "having been a congressman, how influential big money can be." So when he read at his home in Oklahoma about Leading the Future's plan, he said, he thought that "voices that represent the public interest needed to try to do something in response." He added that "$50 million and 85 percent of the people on your side is more than enough to defeat $100 million, or even $200 million for that matter." Mr. Carson has been speaking to wealthy donors, including at Anthropic and even at OpenAI, about the idea ever since news of Leading the Future emerged in August. He has ties to donors through two nonprofit groups he formed last year to sound the alarm about A.I. One group, Americans for Responsible Innovation, has backers that include the Omidyar Network, the main philanthropic vehicle of the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and Coefficient Giving, the vehicle of the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who is also a prominent effective altruist. The two-term congressman, who served from 2001 to 2005, is working with a former Republican congressman, Chris Stewart of Utah, on the new super PACs. Mr. Carson has also been consulting with Jay Shooster, a political strategist who has deep ties to the effective-altruist donor community, the people said. Mr. Carson downplayed any support from the effective-altruism movement, saying that he did not identify with it and that it had "no involvement" with his group. Money from the A.I. industry is poised to be a major story line of the 2026 midterms. Companies like OpenAI are looking to take a cue from how the cryptocurrency industry achieved many of its goals after spending hundreds of millions to back Republicans in 2024. These businesses hope to defeat the likes of Mr. Bores and State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in San Francisco who has also focused on A.I. safety. Mr. Bores and Mr. Wiener are likely to be early beneficiaries of the new super PACs. But the A.I. industry, in contrast with the crypto industry, is not rowing in one direction politically. Some A.I. proponents also believe that the industry should not accumulate too much power, fearing that society will become beholden to the companies' business interests. The effective altruism movement is similarly well funded, but it has a damaged brand that makes political engagement tricky. The movement counted the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried as its most prominent adherent and donor, and it is still recovering from his campaign-finance scandal and criminal conviction. Mr. Moskovitz is now one of the country's largest Democratic donors, but a representative for him said neither he nor his groups were planning to be involved with the new super PACs.

Marc Andreessen-Backed Super-PAC Pours Millions Into Fighting State AI Regulations

A pro-AI super PAC is investing millions into creating an AI-friendly regulatory environment in the United States. Called "Leading The Future," the super PAC is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and the AI search engine company Perplexity. It launched in August, reportedly armed with more than $100 million to ensure a pro-AI win across the country in the 2026 midterm elections. According to the Wall Street Journal, the super PAC is emboldened by the success of crypto super PAC Fairshake, which counted significant pro-crypto wins in the 2024 presidential and local elections. The PAC's first target is New York state assembly member Alex Bores, who is running for a spot in Congress in the Democratic primaries (though the super PAC's efforts are bipartisan, much to the chagrin of the White House). Bores is the co-sponsor of the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, a landmark piece of state-level AI safety legislation that has passed all votes and is waiting for the approval of Governor Kathy Hochul. With a year to go until the midterms, the super PAC has found another target: the state regulations, like RAISE that are giving the AI industry a tough time. Leading The Future launched a $10 million campaign on Monday, pushing Washington to adopt "a uniform national approach to AI," the executive director of the PAC's advocacy arm, Nathan Leamer, told CNBC. The advocacy offshoot led by Leamer is a non-profit called Build American AI, and it's entirely dedicated to this goal, with CNBC reporting that the group will run TV, digital, and social media ads to campaign for its legislative agenda. That uniform national approach they are campaigning for will likely override some of the stricter regulations that have been proposed on the state level. In the absence of any federal regulation governing AI, states like New York and California have taken matters into their own hands with regulations that require AI companies to adopt safety measures. Some in the industry see this as stifling innovation. It's not just Silicon Valley, plenty in Washington are unhappy with this as well. That crowd includes a lot of Republican legislators and President Donald Trump. Republicans have revived calls for a moratorium on state AI laws. A previous attempt to add a similar moratorium to the Big Beautiful Bill fell through in the eleventh hour due to bipartisan backlash. There are several Republicans who support child safety laws regarding AI, and a complete moratorium could jeopardize those pieces of legislation as well. The moratorium is expected to either be a standalone bill or be added to a must-pass bill like the National Defense Authorization Act, which will be voted on next month. Trump already expressed his support on his Truth Social account last week, saying that the United States "MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.†Trump might be planning an executive order to take care of that. Last week, WIRED obtained a draft executive order that would create an "AI Litigation Task Force," which would sue states over AI laws that are deemed to violate federal law governing free speech, interstate commerce, and more. Although reports said Trump could sign this executive order by the end of the week, he hasn't done that yet. Instead, on Monday, he signed another expansive AI-related executive order. Called "The Genesis Mission," that executive order lays out a plan to use AI to turbocharge the government's efforts to solve 20 core science "challenges" that are still to be determined. There's a theme of centralization running through that, too, as the order charges Energy Secretary Chris Wright with "ensuring that all DOE resources used for elements of the Mission are integrated into a secure, unified platform."

2 super PACs gear up for a 2026 spending war over AI

Move over crypto: AI looks poised to be the issue that draws major campaign donations in the next election season. With a year to go, AI's battle lines are being drawn for the 2026 midterms. On one side is a nascent network of super PACS that's poised to endorse Republican and Democratic candidates who support stiffer AI regulations, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. It's set to be helmed by Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. Carson told the Times that the group aims to initially raise $50 million. On the other end is Leading the Future, a super PAC set up in August by tech moguls set to support candidates perceived to be friendly towards the AI sector. It has raised $100 million from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, along with Greg and Anna Brockman. Greg Brockman is the co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The brewing AI spending battle carries echoes of the flood of campaign cash from crypto-related interests in the 2024 election. The crypto industry spent $130 million in last year's Congressional races through a network of political groups led by Fairshake, the pro-crypto super PAC. The blitz of spending helped pave the way for a Congress that's friendlier to crypto interests. In July, lawmakers in both parties approved a package that set up new federal regulations for stablecoins, a digital asset pegged to the U.S. dollar. Leading the Future in particular is attempting to case aside AI skeptics who believe that the technology risks the survival of humanity. Other tech companies are making their political bets to shape AI regulations at the state level as well. In August, Meta launched a new super PAC called the American Technology Excellence Project to back state lawmakers considered allies of the AI industry.

Why is the AI industry scared of this Palantir alum running for congress?

As the midterm election primaries inch closer, some candidates are focusing their campaigns on how they'll regulate artificial intelligence. On the right, populist Republicans are warning that the AI industry stands to undermine the Make America Great Again movement. On the left, there's worry about the sector's growing political and social power. Across the spectrum, there's near-universal concern about what the technology might be doing to children. The donor class is now getting involved: A super PAC called Leading the Future backed by OpenAI executive Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz plans to spend as much as $100 million in the midterms to support its preferred candidates. Another bipartisan super PAC, focused on pushing for a national framework on regulating AI, formed earlier this week. These fights come as the Trump administration pushes to limit the ability of states to regulate the technology. Alex Bores, who authored legislation on AI in New York state and is running to represent its 12th district, has become an early target for Leading the Future's political spending during the midterms. "It's a badge of honor," he says, comparing the effort to an F rating from the National Rifle Association. "This is not tech versus everyone else," he tells Fast Company. "This is one small subset of the tech ecosystem that, instead of engaging in collaborative discussions on bills and how we can work for all, has decided they want to drown out the voices of anyone who isn't them by spending hundreds of millions."

Former congressmen launch super PACs backing AI safeguards

Two former congressmen announced Tuesday that they are launching a pair of super PACs to back candidates that support AI safeguards as a counterweight to industry-backed groups. Former Reps. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Brad Carson (D-Okla.) plan to create separate Republican and Democratic super PACs and raise $50 million to elect candidates "committed to defending the public interest against those who aim to buy their way out of sensible AI regulation," according to a press release. "This isn't a partisan issue - it's about whether we'll have meaningful oversight of the most powerful technology ever created," Stewart said in a statement. "We've seen what happens when government fails to act on other emerging technologies. With AI, the stakes are enormous, and we can't afford to make the same missteps." The pair is also launching a nonprofit called Public First to advocate for AI policy. Carson underscored that polling "shows significant public concern about AI and overwhelming voter support for guardrails that protect people from harm and mitigate major risks." Their efforts are meant to counter "anti-safeguard super PACs" that they argue are attempting to "kill commonsense guardrails around AI," the press release noted. This seemingly takes aim at Leading the Future, a super PAC launched by the AI industry in late August. It secured $100 million in initial funding from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, venture capitalists Ron Conway and Joe Lonsdale and the AI firm Perplexity. The super PAC is reportedly targeting a Democratic congressional candidate, New York state Assemblymember Alex Bores, who co-sponsored AI legislation in the Albany statehouse. Its advocacy arm, Build American AI, also launched an ad campaign Tuesday to push for a federal AI framework. It comes amid a broader fight over state preemption, as House GOP leaders consider adding language to an annual defense bill that would block state AI measures.

Crypto Won Big in 2024. AI Is Angling to Do the Same in 2026

There's plenty of overlap -- both in strategy and personnel -- in how the industries are working to elect sympathetic lawmakers One week after Donald Trump secured a return to the Oval Office, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, co-founders of the venture capital firm a16z, recorded a podcast episode gloating about the 2024 presidential and congressional election results. Andreessen, who has a couple billion dollars to his name, marked the moment as feeling "like a boot off the throat." No longer would he, his business partner, or the rest of the cryptocurrency world face "repression" at the hands of a Biden regime intent on enforcing securities law. Horowitz matched Andreessen's excitement. "Hallelujah," he said. Just 11 months prior, the pair embarked on a mission to aggressively pursue political power, corralling crypto industry bedfellows to fund an ecosystem of Super PACs aimed at electing crypto-friendly officials, and punishing crypto skeptics. The gambit paid off handsomely. Andreessen and Horowitz contributed $22 million each to the crypto industry's primary PAC, Fairshake. In return, Fairshake helped secure a crypto ally's Democratic nomination for Senate in California; flip an Ohio Senate seat from incumbent crypto skeptic and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Democrat Sherrod Brown, to Republican Bernie Moreno; and instill a sense of fear in any would-be crypto opponent. Flush with this success, Andreessen concluded that their newfound command of a vast political warchest should "be a permanent role" in order to protect their business interests. Now, it appears they're looking to double down on last year's success, and export the model they pioneered with crypto to another industry they're heavily invested in: artificial intelligence. This August, Andreessen and Horowitz announced the launch of Leading The Future (LTF), a Super PAC focused on "ensuring the United States leads the world in AI innovation, development, and governance." Their new political influence vehicle has been generously supported by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, venture capitalist Ron Conway, and AI search engine company Perplexity to the tune of $100 million -- an outside spending budget large enough to have made it the sixth-largest Super PAC in the country in the 2024 election cycle, had it existed then. The two individuals entrusted to lead LTF's effort are Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto, both experienced operators with ties to crypto's influence campaigns. Moffatt is the CEO of a Republican-aligned consulting firm that has worked on behalf of crypto and a16z-backed dark money group Digital Innovation for America. He reportedly personally introduced Andreessen to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who has become a reliable ally of the crypto industry and whom the billionaire has become a big supporter of. Andreessen also recently brought on a former executive of Moffatt's firm, Targeted Victory, to help run government affairs at a16z. Vlasto is the "liberal" counterweight. A former chief of staff to governor Andrew Cuomo, Vlasto served as the spokesperson for crypto dark money group Cedar Innovation Foundation, Fairshake, and Fairshake's related PACs from their inception until this past July. He did not respond to requests to clarify whether he planned to maintain his positions at Fairshake while working for LTF. All signs point to LTF attempting to replicate the strategy of the Fairshake model. By bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to bear on a select few cryptocurrency skeptics, Fairshake was able to not only help dislodge some of the industry's foes, but scare crypto-apprehensive legislators into backing the industry's agenda -- lest they become the next target of the blockchain-funded campaign machine. In the year since, the cryptocurrency industry has secured massive legislative wins that protect cryptocurrency stablecoin issuers from state consumer protection laws, allow big tech firms to issue their own stablecoin currencies, and more. Further legislation that would permanently exempt most cryptocurrencies from Securities and Exchange Commission oversight seems poised to pass sometime soon. Come January 2027, Leading The Future might secure similar regulatory exemptions for the AI industry. This would mean relief from potentially bothersome consumer protections being floated by state legislators concerned about privacy, chatbot-driven suicides, and rising utility bills. The PAC has already announced its intention to target one such state legislator, Alex Bores, in an attempt to block him from securing the Democratic nomination in the crowded primary for New York's 12th Congressional District. Bores was a co-sponsor of New York's RAISE Act, an AI regulatory bill that would require companies to publish safety reports and disclose the occurrence of any "safety incident." Leading The Future views the bill as an affront to the industry, stating "bills like the RAISE Act threaten American competitiveness, limit economic growth, leave users exposed to foreign influence and manipulation, and undermine our national security." By targeting Bores, Leading The Future hopes to send a clear message to ambitious legislators: support for AI regulations might jeopardize any chance of career advancement. Fairshake's process began with the same kind of target selection. While it often chose to boost crypto proponents in relatively safe races, offering relatively paltry funds so they could rack up easy wins, it was more selective in its choice of crypto opponents to oust. Fairshake targeted lawmakers who seemed particularly vulnerable to a primary or general election challenge. Many of these candidates were also targets of the pro-Israel group AIPAC, effectively engendering a joint blitz by the endowed newcomer and longtime D.C. heavyweight. The strategy allowed Fairshake to not only concentrate its strength on pivotal races, but avoid any costly -- and humiliating -- defeats, burnishing its image as an electoral juggernaut. In the few swing races Fairshake chose to partake in, it devoted tens of millions of dollars to help ensure a win. Despite a combined outside spending budget of $132 million, Fairshake and its affiliated PACs devoted $70 million to just four races out of the 58 it claimed to be involved with. With cryptocurrency and AI skepticism often going hand in hand, it wouldn't be surprising to see LTF's efforts overlap with those of Fairshake come 2026, bringing even more financial power to bear on a few critical races. Once immersed in a contest, Fairshake took every effort to avoid mentioning cryptocurrency, focusing instead on issues with the greatest salience in that particular race. In their efforts to topple Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Fairshake ads focused on the southern border and China, while efforts to block California progressive Katie Porter from winning the Democratic Senate primary attempted to tar her as a hypocrite who accepted money from big business and lobbyists. In promoting crypto-favorite Randy Fine in Florida, ads highlighted his connection to Trump and the high cost of health insurance, without mention of why a Fairshake-affiliated group might be supporting him. With voters unlikely to see AI innovation or data center construction as motivating campaign issues, it would be no surprise to see LFT adopt this same chameleon-like approach. Despite the lack of mention of cryptocurrency in the ads Fairshake and its affiliated PACs ran, Fairshake made it clear to lawmakers why the crypto industry was lined up to spend money against them. This all-in approach allowed Fairshake to change the behavior of lawmakers fearful of ending up in the group's crosshairs. When Montana Senator Jon Tester was floated as an early potential target of Fairshake, he had a sudden change of heart regarding crypto. He lost his reelection bid to pro-crypto Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), nevertheless. Cryptocurrency expert Mark Hays of Americans for Financial Reform says that attempts to split the difference rarely work. "Some policymakers seem to think that they can have it both ways by conceding to industry interests in return for political support, while saying they also want to protect the public interest. ... It's a shaky bet at best, selling out principles for uncertain return." These compromises may fail lawmakers, but they're the exact behavior PACs like Fairshake and Leading The Future appear designed to foster. Each time lawmakers attempt to appease these PACs, the debate shifts one step closer to the industry's preferred outcome. Though the crypto industry first mobilized against the perceived threat of the Biden administration, the AI industry faces a markedly different political environment. AI has an ally in Trump, and some of its most prominent leaders have his ear, largely thanks to crypto's campaign for power. Andreessen reportedly helped advise Trump on White House staffing, and David Sacks, a billionaire venture capitalist and crypto investor, is serving as both the White House's crypto and AI czar. These relationships have no doubt been bolstered by the president's newly minted cryptocurrency fortune, which could be related to the White House's support of AI. Andreesen and Horowitz's a16z has been pushing the idea that any regulation of AI at a state level would be a violation of the federal government's ability to regulate interstate commerce, and Trump seems to be listening. The White House is reportedly preparing an executive order that would preempt state regulation of the industry, ensuring that blue states like California and New York aren't able to fill the void left by a lack of federal regulation. The White House has also unveiled an executive order that would functionally exempt data centers from environmental reviews and allow for their construction on federal land. OpenAI has called for even bolder executive action, demanding (and later recanting) a federal government backstop for data center construction, and AI's inclusion in CHIPS Act tax credits. As Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project puts it, "The Big Tech AI industry is only interested in one thing: zero laws, zero accountability. The American people do not agree with their agenda, and that's why Big Tech CEOs are putting big money behind efforts to repeal and neuter laws at the federal, state, and international levels." Other AI priorities have been spearheaded by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who introduced legislation to create an AI "sandbox" that would grant the White House wide discretion to waive existing federal regulations that the industry claims hampers their innovation. But Cruz has been isolated by even his own party on his outspoken support of the AI industry, leading some to think that legislative momentum may be stalled. LTF hopes their spending blitz will be enough to change that. After getting used to having the proverbial boot removed from his throat, Andreessen is now eager to place it upon the throat of anyone who dares regulate one of his investments.